ORLANDO – The ‘Days Since Toronto Raptors Playoff Panic’ calendar can now be set to Four. It might be a franchise record.

After the customary fumbling of their first home game in this series against the Orlando Magic, the Raptors have shown in different ways that it should not be much of a matchup. The team that was the second seed in a top-heavy East thoroughly dominated the seventh-seeded Magic in Game 2 on Tuesday night, stifling them on the defensive end while unleashing Kawhi Leonard to bully them offensively.

As the series moved to Orlando for Game 3, the key question was whether the Magic could do what they did in the opener – hang around all night, basically, and steal it at the end – or if that would prove to be something of an illusion. Toronto just has so many playoff-experienced veterans that it should be able to overwhelm a scrappy young team that as this month opened wasn’t even a sure thing for the post-season.

And the answer to that question is that Orlando doesn’t appear ready to go down easily, at least not yet. Leonard, battling an illness the past couple of days, was held to 12 points, but thanks to an explosion from Pascal Siakam, who had 30, including his first three three-pointers of the series, the visitors were able to outlast the home side. While the Raptors could not put the game away until the final minute, they did just enough to escape with a 98-93 win that gives them a 2-1 series lead and quells some of the doubts that are part of the Raptors Playoff Experience.

“I think it showed some toughness for us,” coach Nick Nurse said afterward. “It was really what I thought it was going to be tonight. I really thought this was going to be a tough atmosphere to play in. Again, this is a good team.”

“It’s the playoffs and we want to come out and win the game. That’s all I’m thinking about. It doesn’t matter what the circumstances are. This is the journey to become a champion and these are the things you’ve got to go through.”

The series should truly not be this close. The Toronto front office made two big trades, adding Leonard, Danny Green, and Marc Gasol to this lineup precisely because it wanted this group to be able to contend for an NBA title this season. The resulting roster is stacked with talent. The Raptors can scatter the floor with all-defence players, and thanks in large part to the emergence of Pascal Siakam, they have multiple ways to generate offence.

Here was Orlando coach Steve Clifford, talking before Game 3, about the difficulty of facing the Raptors: “Their defensive personnel is so good. They have two guys who are defensive players of the year. They have four guys who have been on the all-NBA defensive team a lot of the time. They are long, they are great with their hands, and they force turnovers.”

All of that is true. Clifford was speaking specifically about the struggles that his All-Star centre, Nikola Vucevic, had through the first two games. Those continued into Game 3, with Vucevic held to only four points in the first half, both of those baskets coming as he cleaned up rebounds in the paint. He wasn’t in rhythm, and the Orlando offence wasn’t in sync. “We have to score,” Clifford had said, simply, before the game, but it was looking increasingly likely that they didn’t have the horses to do that.

This was the series that was widely envisioned before it began, one in which a team that had serious Finals aspirations dusted off a collection of happy-to-be-here kids.

And then, it wasn’t. Freed by the absence of Gasol, who went to the bench early in the third quarter with foul trouble, Vucevic went off, scoring in bunches, including a wide-open three pointer that gave Orlando a 57-56 lead and resulted in an angry fist pump from the seven-footer who had clearly had enough of being a non-factor.

Five years of Raptors playoff nerves were jangling, again. There always seems to be some reason why this team struggles to put away weaker opponents. Washington wasn’t a real eighth seed last year, it was said, not with the two All-Stars it had in the backcourt. A year before that it was the Milwaukee Bucks, and all their young length, that frustrated a Raptors team that was supposed to have learned how to win in the spring with its run a year before that to the conference finals.

What would the story be this time? That the defensively sound Magic were actually a lot better than their 42-40 record would indicate? That the 58-win Raptors just weren’t getting the calls? That they hadn’t played meaningful games for so long that they were having trouble finding the right level of intensity?

All of that would have been so much bunk, as evidenced by what happened next. Right when things looked hairy, Toronto went on a 16-0 run in the third quarter that once again gave the Raptors a bit of a cushion. Siakam was doing most of the scoring, but they were getting key baskets from Kyle Lowry, from Green, and from Serge Ibaka, who wobbled early but played much better in the second half.

The Raptors should win this series decisively, and their fans shouldn’t have to be imagining excuses for why they might not. If this team is serious about getting where it wants to go, it needs to do what it did on Friday night. It needs to keep proving that it is as good as everyone, including the Toronto Raptors, thought.

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